


Happy Hours

by lasergirl



Category: Forrest Gump - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasergirl/pseuds/lasergirl





	Happy Hours

_**Forrest Gump: Happy Hours**_  
**Title:** Happy Hours  
**Fandom:** Forrest Gump (movieverse)  
**Rating:** General  
**Pairing:** Forrest/Jenny, mild Forrest/Lt. Dan 'shipping  
**Notes:**I didn't really want to write this, but I couldn't help it. The movie's just SO GOOD and there's absolutely NO fic for it. (Also, be glad this isn't r-rated because.... damn.) I need to write hot military!Lt. Dan action, though. I should do a Korean War crossover or something.

This is the story about Forrest and Lt. Dan, and what happened between getting rich and Forrest's Momma dying.

**

There was a time between high noon and sunset that Lt. Dan used to call 'happy hour,' which Forrest didn't understand because as far as he could tell, the sun looked just as happy then as at any other time of day. Or not, when it was raining like it did, or the wind was blowing hard, or there was fog or clouds or most any other kind of weather he could think of. But Lt. Dan kept calling it that, and when the sun reached that point in the sky, over the net boom he perched on, he'd raise up a little bottle of whatever it was he was drinking, and declare it. At least, that was in the beginning.

Shrimping was hard work, but Forrest enjoyed the sun and the sea and the tickling of little creature's legs as they sprawled alive out of the nets. Some days they brought in so much shrimp there was barely a place to stand. It was a good thing, then, that Lt. Dan was handy with ropes.

One of his illustrious ancestors must have been a Marine or something, because the knots he tied never came undone unless he wanted them to. He swung and hauled himself to the top of the mast with a bosun's chair he rigged up. Even though he had no legs, he was sure a good climber. He must have liked the view up there, because he spent nearly all his time hollering at the horizon and waving things around.

Forrest was most afraid for Lt. Dan during that hurricane. The storm wrecked every other shrimping boat in Bayou La Batre, and it very nearly wrecked the Jenny, too, but Lt. Dan wouldn't come down. He stayed up there, cussing and calling the storm and Forrest couldn't make out all the words but some of them sounded pretty mean. But Lt. Dan's knots didn't come undone unless he wanted them to, and he stayed up there for the whole damn thing. He barely had the strength left in him to lower himself back down when it was all over. Forrest carried him back to his wheelchair.

"You know, Forrest," he said with his eyes nearly closed, "This isn't such a bad life."

Forrest didn't ask him what that meant. He just agreed.

After a couple of months, Forrest noticed that Lt. Dan wasn't so thirsty all the time. Time would come for that happy hour, and he'd look up and see him leaning back against the mast with a smile on his face, riding along with the rock and rise of the sea.

"Hey, Lt. Dan!" Forrest called up.

"Yeah, Forrest?"

"Dontcha know it's happy hour?"

"Yeah, Forrest." Lt. Dan grinned. "Why don't you join me?"

"You know I can't drive the boat if I'm up there. Now why don't you come down instead. We can have us some beer and a couple of shrimp."

"Now you're talking," and Lt. Dan slid down the rigging in a flash, quicker than Forrest could blink. "Shrimp cocktails and happy hour, nothing finer."

Forrest thought that Lt. Dan was getting heavier but he didn't know how to say it properly anyway. But he did notice that Lt. Dan didn't drink more than one bottle of beer, and he ate at least nine of the extra-jumbo shrimps that they cooked on toothpicks over a tin of paraffin.

"You know, Lt. Dan, I didn't think you were all that happy during happy hour," Forrest shucked the shell off his shrimp and tossed it over the side of the Jenny. "In fact, the most happy you've been all this time is what you are right now."

That brought creases to Lt. Dan's forehead, but he grinned anyway and dipped his shrimp in cocktail sauce. "There's a lot of things that can make a man happy, Forrest. You'd think sometimes just having a few drinks would make him feel better, but after a while that doesn't even begin to cover it."

"I wouldn't know about that," said Forrest, "When I got shot in the buttocks I didn't need a drink. The doctors gave me some needles, though."

Lt. Dan sighed and wiggled around in his chair trying to get comfortable. "Your buttocks aren't quite the same thing. There's a whole lot more about pain you got to learn, and it isn't all physical. Sometimes you can't put your finger on it, but you just know that something's not right with your insides. You ever think that?"

Forrest could only remember the way his gut went funny every time he watched Jenny walking away, and he nodded quietly.

"There's days I wish you woulda left me." Lt. Dan looked away at the ocean horizon and his eyes were wet. "You shoulda just left me. Things would have been different."

"But Lt. Dan, then I wouldn't have a first mate on my shrimping boat!" Forrest cried out. "It wouldn't be the same as now."

"Oh, yeah," Lt. Dan said sullenly, rubbing where his knees should have been. "Things woulda been real different. I think that, Forrest, but then some days when the sun comes out over the sea, and it's fair wind and a clear sky, and the shrimping's good, I almost forget. You're not like everyone else. You treat me good."

"My Momma always said, you gotta treat folks the same no matter how different they are." Forrest felt uncomfortable all of a sudden, and he twitched away from the cable-spool table back to the wheel of the Jenny. "Even when you was being bad to me, I know you didn't mean it."

Lt. Dan wheeled over and put his hand there, on top of Forrest's where it rested on the wheel.

"I got a lot of sins," he said gruffly, "I'm gonna spend my life confessing them, but you deserve the first: I apologize." Lt. Dan bowed his head, "I'm sorry. I said a lot of things I didn't mean. You're a good friend, Forrest. I was just too stupid to realize it."

Forrest froze; he didn't want to do the wrong thing and make Lt. Dan mad, not after that nice conversation. But he didn't have to wait long because Lt. Dan pulled his hand away from the wheel, pulled Forrest down into a rough embrace that smelled of salt and sun and shrimp cocktail sauce. After a moment, Forrest hugged him back. It felt good to be that close to someone again. It wasn't like those times in New York when Forrest had to help Lt. Dan because he had drank too much. And it wasn't like carrying Bubba neither, it was something else. The closest he could come to what it felt like was the way Jenny and him used to hide, close together like peas and carrots, quiet as mice in the cornfield.

"Uh, Forrest. You can let go now," Lt. Dan grunted, and Forrest let him go. For a minute they didn't say anything at all. Forrest felt that good feeling fade away, until all that was left was the whispering wind and the heat from the sun.

There were lots of good days after that, and lots of fine weather and good shrimping. And Lt. Dan never said, but Forrest always thought that was the day he decided to start living again. A lot of things happen to a man when he makes peace with God, but maybe the biggest thing can happen when he makes peace with himself.

END.

Questions? Comments? Feedback always appreciated.


End file.
